Rules of The Hunt f-2

by VICTOR O'REILLY

  "They'll know everything Kathleen has seen," said Kilmara, "which is not quite the same thing. There are quite a few other precautions in place a layperson wouldn't notice."

  "They'll know the essentials," said Fitzduane, who was thinking furiously, "and they'll do it quickly. And my guess is that they will blast their way in. This isn't a job for a rocket through the window. They will want to make sure, and heavy firepower is the IRAP style."

  Kilmara was somewhat taken aback. The normal style in the North was to seize a hostage half a day or so ahead of the operation, and he had been thinking in terms of this pattern.

  He now realized that Fitzduane could well be right. Allowing for time to make Kathleen talk and to put together a plan based on her information, travel, and reconnaissance, the hit could happen any minute. But they would almost certainly wait until doctors' rounds were over. On the other hand, if this was going to be an assault — a quick in-and-out — they wouldn’t want a clutter of visitors getting in the way, so it would happen before visiting hours.

  They probably had an hour to prepare — at the most.

  Kilmara picked Fitzduane's brain for a few more minutes and then briefed his small force. Certain changes were made. Fitzduane himself was moved from Room Number 2 on the left-hand side of the corridor to Room Number 4, the corner room on the right.

  Kilmara did not fancy a firefight inside the hospital, but he had nowhere else to put Fitzduane that was secure, and at least the private wing had no other patients in it. He would have preferred to take any attackers in the parking lot, or otherwise away from the hospital, but he did not have enough manpower for that option and there was always enough activity directly outside the hospital to make civilian casualties likely.

  The attackers could pick the time, the strength of their force, and the weapons, but Kilmara had picked the ground. It crossed his mind that a famous Irishman, the Duke of Wellington, had specialized in this tactic. He never fought a battle on terrain that he had not scouted in advance, and he never lost. However, sometimes he took truly terrible casualties.

  Kilmara was confident his unit could survive an assault, but he was far from sanguine about the price.

  * * * * *

  For forty-five minutes, Sasada, knife in hand, interrogated Kathleen.

  Over and over again, he asked the same questions, until the spark of defiance faded from her eyes and he was satisfied that she had told as much as she knew.

  By the time he had finished, Kathleen's upper body was slippery with blood and she was deep in shock. Sasada had punctuated his questions with small, threatening cuts of his knife. The blade was so sharp, each cut in itself did not hurt at first, but the streaming blood and the terror he induced drove practically all hope from her mind.

  McGonigal had watched the questioning with mounting irritation. He was operating away from his home turf, and he felt uneasy in strange surroundings. He was from the North of Ireland and knew the habits and methods of the British Army and the RUC — the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The gardai, the police of the Republic of Ireland, and the Irish Army were less of a known quantity.

  When Sasada was finished, he ordered the two women tied and gagged and they were dumped unceremoniously on the floor of the front room. And extending table was pulled out from the wall, chairs put in place around it, and the detailed assault plan rehearsed.

  McGonigal carried out the briefing. That he had survived on the run as long as he had was a tribute to his professionalism. Every attack was rehearsed meticulously, but he had trained all his men to improvise if things went wrong. He emphasized the importance of timing and of discipline. He restated the rules of fire and movement so that no one man advanced without cover from another. Ironically, he had served in the British Army as a young man. Subsequently, he had received further training in Libya and was an expert with Soviet-bloc weapons.

  "It's a small hospital," he said, indicating the plans Sasada had brought, "rectangular in shape. The entrance is in the middle, with the reception desk to the left. Straight ahead, there is a staircase that runs up the center of the building. On each floor, the wards are to the left and to the right. The ward we want — what they call the private wing — is on the third floor on the left. The third floor is the top floor, although the stairs run up to a half-landing above it, where there are toilets and storerooms."

  McGonigal used a knitting needle as a pointer. He had been reminded of his mother when he had found the knitting basket. She had loved to knit. She had been knitting when she had been killed by a stray bullet fired by British paratroops.

  "The nurse says that since our target arrived, there is normally a uniformed garda or sometimes an armed detective at the foot of the stairs. He screens everybody going up and alerts another man on the third floor if anyone is heading up there. The uniformed cop isn't armed, but he does have a radio."

  Jim, the black-haired terrorist, interrupted. "The fellow on the third floor?"

  "The third floor — the private wing on the left — is guarded entirely by Rangers. They have installed what they call a control zone. There is a Ranger outside, then two sets of specially installed armored doors. The outside man checks you through one door. In the middle is a metal detector. If you are clear, then you go through the second set of doors, where there is the second Ranger. The doors are never opened together. Indeed, I gather they can't be. They have some kind of integrated electronic locks."

  "Is there video surveillance?" said another terrorist.

  McGonigal nodded. "There is a camera on the wall overlooking the outside of the two doors. It can see the length of the corridor to the top of the stairs. There were fire doors there, but they were removed by the Rangers. Anyone coming up the stairs or leaving the elevator, which is beside the stairs, is on camera from the moment he hits the third floor."

  There was silence in the room, as each man evaluated what he had heard so far. Taking care of the policeman at reception would be no problem, but getting up three flights of stairs without alerting the armed Ranger at the top would not be so easy. Still, McGonigal normally had an idea. He was good at this kind of thing.

  "Fire escapes?" said Jim. He found the building plans hard to read and would have preferred a recent photograph and a hand drawn sketch. He also had a suspicion of old plans. It was not the Irish way to be meticulous in record-keeping. Whatever the regulations, buildings were modified and amended without up-to-date plans necessarily being filed. He looked at the date on the drawing. These were not the originals but they were still forty years old. He wondered just how reliable they were.

  McGonigal nodded. "There is one at either end of the corridor, and they both go right up to the flat roof. However, I think it is safe to assume that the Rangers will have done something with the one at their end."

  The planning continued. Lying bound and temporarily ignored in the corner, Kathleen listened to an assault scenario being outlined which seemed impossible to stop. She despaired when weapons were pulled out of canvas bags and she saw what the terrorists had assembled. There were not just automatic rifles. These people had rocket launchers and grenades — overwhelming firepower.

  She clung to one thought. She had told the terrorists everything except the correct number of Fitzduane's room. It was one lie she had stuck to despite everything, one lie that she had now convinced herself was the truth, so these bastards would not see through her. Fitzduane was in Room Number 2. She had persuaded them that he was really in Room Number 4. It was all she could do. It was pathetically little.

  Shortly afterward, the terrorists, five in number including Sasada, departed, leaving behind just one man to guard them in case hostages were needed. If the attack went off as planned, there would be a phone call and, lying there helpless, Kathleen and her mother would be killed. They would no longer by needed and they could identify their attackers. Sasada had wanted to kill them earlier, but McGonigal had persuaded him to wait an extra hour or so.

  It was not much time to
live. Silently, Kathleen sobbed. Their guard, Eamon, he of the bald head, listened to the radio and occasionally glanced in their direction. An AK-47 rested on his knees, but he was planning to kill them with his knife. He had killed before, but never in that particular way.

  He had thought of fucking the nurse, but, banged about and drenched in blood as she was, she was not an attractive sight. Still, this waiting was boring. He was supposed to remain in the front room with the blinds down, but that was ridiculous. What difference would it make if someone saw him — just a shape — from outside? And who would, in this remote bloody spot?

  He stood up, stretched, and went into the kitchen to make himself some tea.

  * * * * *

  They used the Bear's car. It would be less likely to attract attention than the unmarked, but still well-known, police vehicles. The Bear's car had an Avis sticker, the badge of a tourist in that part of the world.

  The series of little roads were narrow and winding, and the Bear was still adjusting to driving on the left-hand side of the road. The stone bridges were narrower still. He thought it quite likely that he would be having some paintwork on the local stonework before the day was out.

  As they drove around one bend, about a mile from Kathleen's home, two cars came toward them from the opposite direction. The Bear saw the lead car only at the last minute and swerved desperately to avoid a collision.

  His tires locked, and he skidded off the road and slid inexorably into a patch of boggy ground. When the car came to a rest, using the clutch and gears with care, he tried to drive out but in vain. Next he tried to get out, but his door was stuck.

  The Bear felt very foolish and not a little angry with himself. He should have let one of the policemen drive. He was a good driver in Switzerland, but Ireland always took him a few days to get used to and the roads in the West were worse than most. His front passenger had slid out, and he followed by sliding across with some difficulty. The Bear was not built for confined spaces.

  The four men tried for fifteen minutes to push the car back on the road, but their efforts were fruitless. The Bear fell in the mud several times as he pushed. None of their personal radios could pick up anything in the valley.

  Finally, the four men set off for the Fleming house on foot. The Bear was not overly fond of walking, but could manage a brisk enough pace if it was absolutely essential. The armed detective brought up the rear of the little party. He had taken his Uzi out of the briefcase it was normally carried in and slung it over his shoulder.

  After the men had walked for five minutes, the sky became black and menacing and suddenly it began to rain in sheets. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled in the distance.

  The Bear's moustache began to droop. He was soaked from the thinning hair on his head to the well-designed tips of his expensive Bally shoes — a gift from Katia and not typical Bear apparel. Not for the first time, he thought the Irish climate was ridiculous.

  He wondered why he was prepared to behave in a decidedly uncautious and un-Bernese way when in Fitzduane's ambit. Somehow, this damned Irishman brought out the adventurer in him.

  The Bear straightened and began to whistle a Bernese marching song. Behind him, the two uniformed guards, who had had the sense, being local, to wear uniform caps, long raincoats, and Wellington boots, looked at each other and, when they had got the hang of it, joined in. Behind them, the detective checked the condom on the muzzle of his Uzi for effectiveness in conditions which might be deemed somewhat harsher than its normal design parameters — and beat time with his hand slapping against the receiver.

  Soon, they were all marching in step. Ahead of them as they rounded a bend lay the Fleming bungalow.

  There was a light on at the back of the house.

  10

  Connemara RegionalHospital

  February 1

  There is a rule of thumb in the traditional military world that the attacker needs more manpower — three to five times is recommended — than the defender to ensure success.

  Paradoxically, in terrorist and counterterrorist operations, the reverse has often turned out to be true. A small attacking force armed with high-firepower weapons has time and again inflicted damage out of all proportion to its size. That does not invalidate traditional military lore. It merely means that in the world of terrorism, the attacker rarely needs to seize and hold territory. Instead he is primarily interested in the logistically simpler task of inflicting maximum destruction in a strictly limited period of time. In his favor, he had tactical surprise on his side. He can choose when and where and how to strike. He can ensure that, though outnumbered and outgunned on an overall basis, at the point of contact he has superiority.

  Kilmara, whose entire military career had been spent in the world of special forces and counterterrorism, knew the rules of the game as well as anyone. It was why he disliked being on the defensive. To Kilmara, the initiative was everything. Temperamentally, he was not a believer in the big battalions. He had more faith in planning, timing, audacity, and firepower.

  But he was also a pragmatist. On an operation, he rarely allowed himself to be distracted by aspirational thinking. He worked within the context of the situation, and if it was not to his liking he merely swore more than usual and worked even harder. He was a believer in the work ethic in his arcane special forces world. He could not understand why all military men did not follow this creed, since the alternative was, not infrequently and quite predictably, death.

  The hard core of the IRAP unit was only three men, Kilmara knew, but that was often fleshed out with manpower drafted in for a specific operation. Reviewing past IRAP operations on his computer linked to Ranger headquarters in Dublin, he noted that as many as twenty terrorists had been involved in some attacks, and that in some instances, armed with heavy firepower, they had stood their ground and gone head to head with regular army troops.

  It was generally thought that the terrorists bombed and sniped and immediately ran away, but that was not always the case. And IRAP, in particular, liked to play hardball. McGonigal was a murderer and arguably a psychopath, but he did not lack either bravery or daring. On the side of the angels, he would be considered a hero.

  He was sitting in a swivel chair in Room Number 4 of the private wing, looking at a bank of television screens linked to microminiaturized cameras that had been installed to cover all key points both inside and outside the hospital. Apart from light from the television monitors, the room was in total darkness. A dense black fabric had been pulled down over the windows and stapled in place. The same had been done to every room on the private ward.

  In the corner of the room, Fitzduane, tired from talking to Kilmara earlier, was asleep.

  * * * * *

  Mary Fleming was evidently fond of home baking.

  Eamon had found freshly baked soda bread in the kitchen, together with a pound of creamery butter and some homemade raspberry jam. He put his AK-47 on top of the dishwasher, rooted in the drawers for a bread knife, and went to work with a will. He was in seventh heaven. You could take your French cuisine and stuff it. The high point of Eamon's culinary life had been bread and jam at his mother's table, and this little feast evoked strong and pleasant memories.

  The weather outside was atrocious. It was so dark that without the light on in the kitchen he would have been scarcely able to see, and sheets of rain lashed at the windows and made looking outside a matter of squinting and peering. It was like looking through Vaseline. But in these conditions nobody would be out walking and he would hear any car that drove in. Even with the noise of the rain, the wind, and distant thunder, there was a loose cattle grid at the entrance that clanged noisily when driven over.

  He had the radio on quietly in the corner. It was really very pleasant, this cocoon of warmth, light, and comfort in the midst of the worst the elements could do.

  As his hunger was being satisfied, his other needs surfaced. Out of sight, the attractions of the nurse increased. He conveniently forgot the
bloodstained upper body, the knife nicks on her throat and breasts. Instead he remembered slim thighs and long legs. She was wearing only a bathrobe and panties. He felt pressure against the front of his pants. He would have a couple more slices of bread and jam and then service this woman. He might as well. She would be dead meat soon enough. He did not fancy fucking a corpse. It was obscene.

  He had left the bread board on the counter by the window. As he picked up the bread knife, there was sudden flash of lightning and a loud crack and the kitchen light went out.

  He looped up at the lifeless tube, then noticed the radio had gone dead. Either the lines were down or a couple of fuses had blown. Ah, well, it was of little matter. What he planned to do next was as often as not done in the dark. And with Kathleen in her present condition, it might be better that way.

  He turned around to finish cutting his bread, and screamed. Through rain-smeared glass he could see a face looking down at him. The face was like something out of a nightmare. It was large and hairy and grim, and the man himself was a giant. He wore some kind of matted mud-smeared garment.

  The window in front of him exploded into shards of glass and a massive hand reached out for him, grabbed him by the collar, and hauled him off his feet.

  Desperately, he lashed out with the bread knife, felt the blade make contact, and pulled free.

  There was a crash at the front of the house, and he could feel the wind whistle down the corridor. Someone had broken in, but that was the least of his worries. His AK-47 was on top of the dishwasher only feet away. He dived for it and knocked it onto the floor as he grabbed.

  He rolled, found the weapon, and turned. The massive fist holding the largest handgun he had ever seen was pointing right at him. There was a stab of flame, and he felt a terrible blow on his right shoulder. The weapon slid from his arms and he slumped back, half lying on the floor but partially propped up against the kitchen unit.